


they say your head can be a prison (then these are just conjugal visits)

by seroquel (smallredboy)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Biblical Allusions, Canonical Character Death, Catholic Guilt, Depression, Disordered Eating, Family Issues, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mostly Gen, Poor Hygiene, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-11-02 07:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20671277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/seroquel
Summary: The aftermath of Rowan Chase's death isn't pretty.





	they say your head can be a prison (then these are just conjugal visits)

**Author's Note:**

> for 15woes with the prompt "poor hygiene", trope-bingo with the free space which i used for "death fic", and short fics with the prompt "darkness hangs heavily".
> 
> enjoy!

Chase wants control, so he looks for it in any place he can find.

He can’t control the issues he is going through. (He can’t control the fact both his parents are dead before he even hits thirty; he can’t control the fact he’s on a two-week suspension from work because he killed a patient; he can’t control the fact he’s miserable and falling into a downward spiral.)

But what he can do is controlling himself.

It starts as a distraction. The emptiness in his chest becomes emptiness in his stomach. Plus, he doesn’t have to go outside of his apartment so often if he isn’t eating as much as he used to. His weight drops before he caves in and eats all the sweets in his fridge. The cycle of restrict-binge-restrict-binge seems to go on forever, and he’s not sure if it’s all that good of an idea. He’s not seeking to lose weight, no, it has never been that. He just wants his body to be his own.

He doesn’t mean to not shower, though. It just happens. He’s exhausted even while doing nothing and sitting down on his bathtub feels like chewing glass. He’d much rather exist in an overused hoodie and baggy jeans than have to look at himself in the mirror, to face the fact he’s an orphan at twenty-seven, to face the fact his father never cared about him.

House leaves him a voicemail telling him to go to a therapist for the benefits, that it’ll work out great for him. His voice is laced with sarcasm, but he can almost say there’s a note of genuine care in there. He might just be going crazy— since when does House care? (He doesn’t dignify that voicemail with a response, as much as he’d like to. He deletes it and ignores the suggestion. He knows he’s not doing fine in the least, but going to therapy is like admitting defeat.)

Foreman texts him a few times, asking how he’s doing, asking if he’d be up to go out for lunch sometime soon.

He’d love to say yes, to be functional, to get up and shower and get dressed, to actually go somewhere other than grocery shopping because he needs more food to binge on. But he can’t. He can’t have Foreman see that he’s a fucking disaster, that he’s in a downward spiral that doesn’t seem to have an end on sight.

He can’t get out of the shell of his pride, so he ignores his texts. So he keeps sulking senselessly, hoping for someone to come and save him from his own destruction.

*******

Chase nearly throws up when he gets the invitation handed to him.

He barely recognizes the man who went to his apartment door to give it to him, but he knows he’s one of his father’s friends, with the way he looks sad, defeated over the man’s loss against cancer. They don’t exchange many words, as if the man knows he’ll start screaming his head off if he has to hear one single pitying comment, one I’m so sorry for your loss.

The invitation is nothing out of the ordinary, except for the location. Melbourne, Australia. A natural choice, considering that’s where Rowan lived for most of his life, moving from Czechoslovakia to Australia when he was barely an adult. But it’s still miles upon miles away from New Jersey.

He sits down at his living room and reaches to drink some soda, his stomach growling. He ignores it— he has greater matters to worry about.

Right now, he doesn’t have a job. Having no reason to get out of bed, out of his apartment really messes with him, but it is what it is. He ignored a patient out of grief, out of confusion, out of anger, and that patient died because of his negligence. He’s not angry that he has a two-week suspension, he’s angry that the two-week suspension matches up with him trying to come to terms with Rowan’s death.

He could easily buy a plane ticket, go to Melbourne, mourn his father, cry a little, put on a show.

But then he thinks of it all— of the colleagues that would come to the funeral, sing praises for him, talk about how much of a good man he was. How he revolutionized rheumatology forever. How he was kind and funny and outgoing and that parties after conferences with him were a blast. How he always respected everyone around him, how he always remained calm and helpful. How the fact he abandoned his alcoholic wife and his two children for his fifteen-year-old son to take care of his mother until she died doesn’t matter, as long as he was a half-decent doctor.

He can’t go there.

He can almost see himself making a scene in the funeral, yelling at them for trying to pretend he was a decent person. The thought makes his guts twitch with shame— he can’t have that be what all of his father’s friends’ remember him for. How he flipped out at his funeral.

He can’t go to the funeral. 

He draws in a shaky breath and rips the invitation apart, his eyes itching with tears as he throws the bits and pieces into the trashcan.

*******

The priest is talking about the fourth commandment.

“Honor your mother and your father, for they have given you the gift of life—”

He has honored his mother all these years. He has remembered her every year, prayed for her soul, prayed for her to be better, to be happy up in Heaven. As much as he resented her for being unable to take care of him and her sister, that resentment disappeared over the years. Alcoholism isn’t her fault, especially when she had a man such as Rowan looming over her.

He has honored his mother. He has prayed for her, he has done all he could to preserve her memory as a strong woman before addiction ruined her until the end of her days. He has talked to his mother’s side of the family, seeking stories, anecdotes, anything. Anything that will let the hatred fade away, so he can remember her for who she was— a good woman.

But his resentment for Rowan hasn’t faded away in the least. He has been in a phone call or two about his will— he’s not in it. A quarter of it goes to his sister, three-fourths goes to medical research for various illnesses, but of course, as his cause of death, there’s a focus on cancer. He doesn’t get a single penny, a single pound,  _ nothing _ . What an unsubtle way of saying that, even from beyond the grave, he doesn’t care about him.

Why does he have to honor his father, when his father never honored him? Why is the gift of life ever-so-important, as if he had asked to be born, as if he had been asked to be born in Melbourne, Australia to an absent father and an alcoholic mother? Why does it matter, in the end— why does it matter? Why is it a commandment to honor your parents, no matter what they do, no matter what they did, no matter what they will do?

He questions it all. He questions his faith, he questions if he really does believe in God, if the commandments make any sense. He questions and questions and questions, and he always comes up empty.

On Monday, he goes back to that same church, goes to the confessional.

“I broke the fourth commandment,” he says, folding his hands, his bottom lip trembling.

*******

Chase is sulking on the couch when there’s someone knocking at the door. He straightens up robotically, pursing his lips as he walks to the door. Behind it is House, tall and imposing and his eyes devoid of any emotion until he gets a good look at Chase.

“Jeez,” House says, clicking his tongue, “you look like you haven’t showered in a week, wombat.”

(House is right. He hasn’t.)

He shrinks in on himself like he’s being lectured, looking down at the floor. “Hi to you too,” he replies airily.

Chase doesn’t see it, but House’s look softens.

“C’mon,” House says, grabbing his arm, watching him flinch just a little. “You can’t come back to work in this state.”

“I know,” he says, following House’s lead as he looks through the rooms, eventually finding his bathroom. He pulls away from House a little. “Are you really—?”

“Look,” House starts, with that same annoyance of always, like they’re not in Chase’s apartment’s bathroom. He wonders for a brief second if this is a case of pity sex, if House really feels that bad for him. It doesn’t add up, though, doesn’t make much sense. “Foreman hasn’t gotten any reply on his texts, he was worried, so I just came here and you look like a kicked puppy. I’ve got to do something for ya.” He purses his lips, furrowing his brows before looking away. “I’ll fill the bathtub.”

“You want to wash me?” Chase says. “I really don’t need—”

“You do,” House cuts in, with more compassion that he’s ever heard in his voice.

Is he really letting House in like this, at this point in time? His absent father died and now he’s letting his boss treat him like a small child, washing him clean, getting baptized once again. 

He swallows thickly. “Okay.”

House leans in toward the bathtub faucet and turns it on. “I’ll undress too, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he nods as he slowly starts stripping down. 

He sinks into the bathtub, the air uncomfortable and yet careful. He scoots closer to the faucet so House has a spot to sink into. House grabs onto the bathtub and grunts as he sinks onto the warm water, a careful distance in between his torso and Chase’s back.

He feels a lot pathetic like this, as House squirts shampoo into his hand and starts scrubbing at Chase’s scalp, making him go lax, relaxing a little. “I’m sorry I’m bothering you with this,” he says, even though House offered this, even though House is the one who came to his apartment in search of fixing him. 

“No, it’s okay,” House replies as he grabs a sponge, scrubbing at Chase’s arms. He makes sure to not look at House for too long, to not look at the scar tissue on his leg, to not be too vulnerable even as he bathes him. “I get it.”

Oh, he gets it.

He bites the inside of his cheek. “Who was it?”

House stays silent for several seconds, not stopping his movements in the least, still washing him. “My grandma,” he mutters.

“Oh.”

The thought that House fell into this very same pattern years ago comforts him. House also went through this; his role model, his boss, his  _ savior  _ if he’s feeling a little bold, also grieved and went into a downward spiral for a family member.

For this moment, he feels like he’s Job, suffering for years before he gets everything he needs right back.


End file.
